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Dunkerque class battleship
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Dunkerque class battleship | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Class Overview | |
| Type: | battleship |
| Name: | Dunkerque |
| Number of ships: | 2 |
| Preceded by: | Planned: Lyon class battleship Built: Bretagne class battleship |
| Succeeded by: | Richelieu class battleship |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 36 380 tonnes |
| Length: | 215.1 m |
| Beam: | 31.1 m |
| Draught: | 8.7 m |
| Propulsion: | 6 Indret boilers 4 Rateau geared turbines |
| Speed: | 31 knots |
| Protection: | 225 mm (side belt) 30 mm (anti-torpedo bulkheads) |
| Complement: | 1381 |
| Armament: | 2 quadruple 330 mm turrets 3 quadruple and 2 double 130 mm AA turrets |
| Aircraft: | 4 floatplanes, 1 catapult |
The Dunkerque class was a new type of warship of the French Navy, labelled as "fast battleship". Not as large as other contemporary battleships, they were designed to counter the threat of the German pocket battleships of the Deutschland class.
The design was very innovative: the whole of the main armament was mounted forward. This had been the case for the Royal Navy's Nelson class battleships but they had three turrets carrying nine guns and the angles of fire for the rearmost were limited by the turret in front. The Dunkerque used two quadruple turrets which gave unrestricted fire. In the context of the Treaty of Washington, the quad arrangement had the advantage of saving weight on turret armouring, compared to four double turrets, while retaining the same firepower. The drawback was that a single lucky shot immobilising one of the turrets would effectively put half the main artillery out of action. On the other hand, the entirety of the main artillery was able to fire forwards, as the ship closed in to her enemy, in an angle where she made the smalled possible target.
The mounting of all the armament in quadruple turrets was a feature unique to the late design French battleships, and was also found on the subsequent Richelieu and Jean Bart.
Both ships, the Dunkerque and the Strasbourg, were kept by Vichy France and eventually destroyed in the Scuttling of the French fleet in Toulon.
| Dunkerque class battleship |
| Dunkerque | Strasbourg |
List of battleships of France |